Thursday, June 25, 2009

Wimbledon and the Jews

[Pete Sampras, whose record 14 Grand Slam championships is about to be eclipsed

For years British tennis fans have tortured themselves with hopes that the aptly named Tim Henman would win Wimbledon. Henman rarely got into the top ten in tennis, and never got beyond some frustrating come-from-ahead losses in the early rounds. He once got as high as losing in the semifinals.

But that is all behind them now. With Andy Murray ranked No. 3 in the world, and Rafael Nadal injured, their guy figures to have the honor of losing to Roger Federer in the final. It will be a big honor for England because it will be Federer's 15th Grand Slam championship, the most anyone has ever won.

On Gilda Radner's theory that It's Always Somet'ing, some of the English fans are not impressed with Murray because he is not one of them. He's from Scotland.

In any case, the British know nothing about suffering compared to the Jews. The Jewish strongboy from Boca Raton, Jesse Levine, is ranked 133rd in the world. He just beat an Uruguayan to get into the third round. There are 128 initial contenders, 64 reach the second round, so Levine is one of the remaining 32.

At a critical moment near the end of the fourth set, the chair umpire over-ruled his own linesman to take away a crucial point from Jesse Levine. I have been watching the early rounds at Wimbledon for many hours. It was the only chair over-rule I have seen in any match. It was on an outer court that did not have electronic review.

The chair also took the point away from Levine when the rule is to have the players replay the point.

The chair umpire was Mahmoud Something from Morocco.

The little prick attempted to cover his ass by over-ruling his linesman again on an insignificant point in the fifth set, this time in favor of Levine.

These were the only chair over-rules so far in the tournament. What Mahmoud the Arab forgot was that the whole world was watching.

The reason Anonymous is in denial about the reality of anti-semitism in British and Irish life is that he is in denial about his own anti-semitism.

Thank you for being a reader, Anonymous. You are however exactly wrong. Anti-semitism flies in the face of reason. It flourishes all the more for lack of facts or evidence. Not having met a Jew has nothing to do with it.

An interesting example was the fad of anti-semitism in Japan a few years ago, a country with no Jews at all. When the press began to run stories that widespread anti-semitism was bad for Japan's image abroad, most of them dropped it and went on to some other idiot idea.

Similarly, almost all Jews were expelled from Arab countries in the 1950's and 1960's. Yet media in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and other countries still routinely run explicit Nazi propaganda. Translations are available at www.memri.com

As an aside I should mention that in Israeli politics, the descendants of expellees from Arab countries, Sephardim and Mizrahim, have long since become a majority both in the country and in the Knesset, the parliament.

The descendants of Arab country expellees and their political parties are understandably less conciliatory about enduring Arab violence unanswered than the Ashkenazim, the descendants of European Jews.

I think you are obsessed with issues of race. But thats OK. Makes for fun reading, especially with the realisation about how oblivious you are to everything that doesn't agree with your world view. For a man who has clearly read so widely and travelled its positively hilarious how anyone can be so obtuse.